This is probably what you’re remembering.
Coolio was not cool with Amish Paradise.
Al wrote to Coolio’s record label for permission to parody “Gangster’s Paradise”. The label said “Yes”. Al later learned that Coolio himself had said “No”. Al sent all of the royalties from “Amish Paradise” to Coolio. When recounting the story, he turned to the camera and said “Please don’t hurt me”.
I’m not sure I’d call it so much a fixation as an instinct or a discovery. Notice particularly the types of foods that end up in the parodies: Proust’s madeleines never show up, and neither do manna or the nectar of the gods. Music lyrics have poetic themes, and he’s chosen the really non-poetic stuff like baloney and Spam. “It doesn’t matter if it’s boiled or fried, just eat it.” 
The ease with which common everyday foods can turn poetry non-poetic, or (to put it more grandly) turn the sacred into the profane, without causing major offence to anyone, has to be a factor. As well as the fact that everyone knows about food. He could probably do some great parodies based on weird trivia, but then only six people would appreciate it.
You mean, like “White and Nerdy”?
In his Behind the Music episode on VH1, he told the story that he had a very narrow window of opportunity to talk to Kurt Cobain when the group was playing on Saturday Night Live (it being a live show that tapes in New York City). So during the taping, he called Victoria Jackson, who starred with Al in UHF, Al’s terrific feature film. Victoria approached Kurt Cobain who agreed to speak with Al.
And the rest is history.
Wesley Clark, as I recall the story, Al told Kurt that the song was about how hard his lyrics were to understand (i.e., to hear clearly due to lack of enunciation), not that the lyrics didn’t make sense.
I think they died on a Friday, maybe Thursday. See, the reason I remember that is there was an article in our Friday paper about how Al was going to be performing in my city the following Wednesday and I wanted desperately to buy tickets.
Then on Saturday came the news of the deaths and I figured he wouldn’t be in town. But he DID perform, and was quoted as saying he would work up until the funeral, because as long as he was working he wasn’t crying.
What a trouper. He gave a fantastic show, when he must have been crying inside. Before the performance started a screen lit up in the darkened auditorium which said “Tonight’s performance is dedicated to the memory of Nick and Mary Yankovic.” Everybody stood up and clapped. and cheered.
Which is actually based on a Stevie Wonder song, Pastime Paradise. Makes it kind of ironic that Coolio complained.
The members of Imagine Dragons were big fans of Weird Al growing up. The future bass player even got to meet him.
You’re right. Thats what I meant but I wasn’t clear in my original post when I said the lyrics didn’t make sense (ironically).
[quote=“What_Exit, post:29, topic:819388”]
Which is actually based on a Stevie Wonder song, Pastime Paradise. Makes it kind of ironic that Coolio complained.
[/QUOTE]So if Weird Al always gets permission (even though he doesn’t have to), was the case with Coolio that Coolio gave him permission to parody Gangsta’s Paradise and then didn’t like the outcome? Like what was he expecting?
Well,
It’s based on BEING white and nerdy, and in any question of the relevance of that to a wider audience, I will (for predictable reasons) have to recuse myself from the decision. 
Just as Mark Mothersbaugh supposedly said that Dare to be Stupid is the best Devo song, B.B. King is often quoted as saying that Al’s Generic Blues is one of his favorite Blues songs.
Does anyone know when Al started his policy of always getting permission from the original artist? People know who he is now, but the first recording of My Bologna was done in the bathroom across the hall from the radio station when he was in college. It’s hard to imagine a guy with one novelty recording managing to get in touch with Queen or Michael Jackson about parodying their songs.
The guy really IS a very good songwriter (lyrics-focused obviously) with wide-ranging skill. Many songwriters are probably better at their own personal style than Yankovic is, but there can’t be that many around who are as good as he is at just about everything at once.
Why not? I mean, personally in touch probably not, but contacting their representative is as easy as looking up the address and sending a message. And such requests are going to go through the representative at some point anyway - if I really did walk up to a world-famous artist and ask their personal permission, their publicist or lawyer or whatever would have to get involved regardless.
“Hi, Freddie. The Wembley concert sold out in twelve minutes, so we’re trying to see if we can book a second date. The Lear Jet is being repainted, but should be ready to take you from Montreux to Ibiza next week. And a student at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo wants to do a parody of one of your songs, so I told him that was fine. No, not food; something about buses.”
**mbh **explained above:
I recall Coolio being upset as he thought Gangsta’s Paradise had too important of a message to lessen by parody. It could also be because Amish Paradise is actually the best version of the song of the 3. That would probably piss me off too.
ETA: I understand that as Coolio got older, he realized that if people like Michael Jackson embraced the Weird Al parodies he was a little silly to be upset about it.
Ah, apologies to mbh who provided the answer to my question earlier in the thread. I must have just skipped over to the last post on that topic in the thread and missed it.